


No words

by strikedawn



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: M/M, because Sorey needs a hug sometimes, just some fluff/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 09:02:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8884933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikedawn/pseuds/strikedawn
Summary: Sometimes, even the Shepherd needs to be reminded he isn't alone.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just an old drabble I wrote on my tumblr (valerianights). I hope you guys like it!! <3<3

Mikleo watched with pursed lips as weight pilled up on Sorey’s shoulders.

It’s started little by little: first it was the pleading look of a mother asking the Shepherd for help with her rogue son —not a rogue teenager after all, but a hellion, an almost lost cause if it hadn’t been for Sorey’s dedication. Then it was two brothers, their trivial dispute made too big by the latent malevolence that swirled between them. Mikleo had felt like choking as Sorey jumped between them, one of their fists hitting Sorey’s cheek instead of its intended target, but Sorey stood his ground and didn’t draw his sword until it was almost too late; by then, Mikleo had already been clutching his staff, and Lailah’s anxious voice had rang above the raging screams of the brothers.

Problems like those —stupid domestic disputes that became worse by malevolence— left chips on Sorey’s shoulders that he hid underneath the Shepherd’s cloak. But then it was Marlind, an entire village’s salvation in Sorey’s hands; and afterwards it was every person Sorey hadn’t been able to save, people so infected by the malevolence that they had died even before transforming into hellions. Mikleo stood a little ways behind Sorey as he committed every single name to memory, saw Sorey’s lips move soundlessly while he apologized for not being able to reach them in time.

And because Mikleo was always watching, he started to see the changes.

He saw Sorey’s luminous smile decaying like flowers in the fall, still struggling to look bright and colorful but starting to wither around the ages. He saw his posture —the line of his shoulders, the proud tilt of his chin — change into a shadow of what it used to be: his eyes skirted around, his shoulders so sagged that his cloak hung lifelessly from his body frame.

All those little changes pulled at Mikleo’s heartstrings. He kept trying to find the Sorey of his memories —a luminous, splendid Sorey that had run down the green slopes of Elysia with dirty feet and laughter clinging to his lips — in the one presented in front of him now, the one full of responsibilities that shouldn’t be his in the first place.

It was hard, like trying to find one’s own reflection in a fogged mirror.

Mikleo wasn’t choking anymore. He was drowning.

But he couldn’t drown, not when he had to keep Sorey afloat. He tried, he really did: each time he pushed their bow up with their hands, each time he aimed at a new hellion, every time their hearts beat together, Mikleo was trying to take some of the weight off Sorey’s shoulders. And for a while it worked; bringing the drake down in Marlind did wonders to Sorey’s form, so did their work purifying the land in between taking much needed rests.

But then war broke, and Sorey took all the weight of it with a determined look.

Again.

They would part towards the place known as Glaivend Basin tomorrow. Mikleo had only read about the war, never been involved in it of course, so he couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like. He could, however, imagine how all the death, ire and despair would affect Sorey, and it scared him. It _terrified_ him. As he was now, Sorey amid all that malevolence was a bomb begging to be detonated.

Mikleo had never known such a crippling fear.

So it was no wonder he couldn’t sleep the night before their departure. He forwent the warmth of his own bed for the chill night of Marlind, hoping the silence and now clean air would help calm his nerves.

He found himself sitting on the low rail of the inn’s porch, his naked feet hanging over the grass, the longest blades tickling the tips if his toes. Overhead, the stars were bright but scarce; no sky looked like Elysia’s night sky, as he had discovered a little after their journey had began. Elysia had so many stars that they tended to pile up ones over the others until the whole sky was more white than dark blue, so much so that more than once Sorey and Mikleo had been able to move around the village even on moonless nights, only illuminated by the stars’ glow.

Mikleo missed that sky. He had known he would miss the people, his house, even the calmed lifestyle he had led back at the village. He had never thought he would miss something as permanent as the sky.

But Marlind’s purified night sky was as good as it was gonna get, so he closed his eyes and turned his face towards the stars, letting the silence wash over him and quiet his buzzing mind.

He wasn’t alone for long. He had kind of expected to be found soon, maybe by Lailah, who seemed to be sleeping as little as Mikleo himself; or even by Edna, maybe because she was bored and Mikleo was always a good source of amusement for her.

He didn’t expect —when the door behind him opened with a creak—to find Sorey standing in the doorway, with his hair mussed, undershirt wrinkled and faint shadows under his eyes. All of them had been walking around town non-stop looking for someone who might had needed their help, so Mikleo had had no doubt that Sorey would sleep throughout the night from extenuation.

But obviously it hadn’t been like that, and now Sorey was standing behind him with a tired smile and even more tired eyes as Mikleo looked at him over his shoulder, his lips parted with surprise.

Sorey let the door fall shut behind himself, but he didn’t move closer.

Mikleo swung his legs around so he was facing Sorey. His feet still didn’t touch the ground.

“Sorey.” Mikleo called. Under his watchful eyes, Sorey’s shoulders went a little tense. “You should be sleeping.”

“I know.” Sorey replied with an apologetic look. Why? Mikleo wondered. There was nothing Sorey had to feel sorry for. “I just… heard noises here. I didn’t know it was you.”

Sorey’s words weren't a lie, Mikleo knew, but they sat wrong on Mikleo’s ears. Mikleo had been nothing but silent since he had roused from his own bed. He had made sure to leave his shoes behind to be extra silent even, and nothing had happened outside that could have woken Sorey up.

Sorey was skittish though, his hands at his sides kept twitching and his eyes never finished to meet Mikleo’s own. There was a fine layer of sweat clinging to his temples too, despite the chilly temperature of the night, and… was he pale, or was it a trick of the light? Mikleo couldn’t be sure.

What he knew, however, was that Sorey needed something. He just had to find out what.

“Are you okay, Sorey?” Mikleo asked, tilting his head to the side.

Sorey didn’t answer. He wasn’t one to lie. “What a beautiful night.” He said instead, looking out at the inn’s front yard. “It doesn’t look like a dragon was flying around just this morning.”

“…It really doesn’t.” Mikleo said after a slight hesitation. He decided to give Sorey whatever he wanted. “But that’s just thanks to you. You took the drake down.”

“We did.” Sorey amended. He said it quickly, as if trying to reassure Mikleo. It was the first time since Sorey had come out that their eyes had met. “ Your aiming was perfect.”

“Mm.”

Mikleo didn’t say anything to that, but it didn’t seem to matter to Sorey, who kept glancing around while he scratched the back of his neck. The gesture reminded Mikleo of when they were children; it was a gesture Sorey did often, sure, but something in Sorey’s expression in that moment made Mikleo think of the child that had gripped his hand as they walked around dark ruins, instead of the man he had stepped out of Elysia with.

Mikleo’s heart gave another painful tug. It did that a lot, recently.

“You should go back to sleep.” Mikleo said after some minutes of silence. He knew he had to say something to Sorey, but didn’t really know what, and that was something he had never experienced before. “You need to rest and tomorrow we’ll leave early.”

“Oh.” Sorey let his hand fall to the side, eyes casted away from Mikleo. “You’re right. I should go back inside.”

Mikleo nodded. His fingers dug into the wood of the rail. “Goodnight, Sorey.”

Sorey turned, his back to Mikleo, his face to the door. His hand hovered over the doorknob for a moment, fingers barely grazing it. His shoulders were so tense they almost covered Sorey’s ears.

“Mikleo?”

“Yes?”

Sorey’s hand closed over the doorknob, as if preparing to bolt inside depending on Mikleo’s next words. Mikleo saw Sorey close his eyes.

“Can I stay with you for a bit?”

Something inside Mikleo broke. Maybe it was Sorey’s voice —broken and childlike—, or maybe it was the way he asked, as if he couldn’t bear the thought of doing so, of asking something of someone else. That thought hurt Mikleo the most, because since when did Sorey not dare ask something of him? As if there was something Mikleo wouldn’t give him.

As if Mikleo wouldn’t give his life away for Sorey before he could even ask.

“Of course you can.”

Barely his words were out of his mouth, Sorey was already walking away from the door and towards Mikleo’s perch on the railing, steps sure and firm. Mikleo didn’t take his eyes off him, of his tense expression, of his tight chest that clearly was holding air inside his lungs.

It only took Sorey four long steps to cross the porch to be in front of Mikleo.

It took him even less to curl his arms around Mikleo’s waist and burrow his face on Mikleo’s chest.

Sitting on the railing Mikleo was taller than Sorey, so it wasn’t a hard position to maintain. Mikleo’s legs kept Sorey away, however, his back bent in a weird angle, so Mikleo opened his legs naturally, as naturally as Sorey stepped in between them and pressed himself closer against Mikleo, finally letting a long sigh escape from his lips. Mikleo’s arms came around Sorey’s shoulders, unclenching the muscles underneath with slow, circular movements that made Sorey sag against Mikleo even more.

Mikleo felt Sorey’s sigh against the side of his neck, the only warm thing in that cool night.

“Sorry.” Sorey muttered, but his arms went tighter around Mikleo.

“What for?” Mikleo asked back. His hands didn’t stop massaging Sorey, though one of them moved upwards towards his nape, his fingers playing with the longest strands of brown hair. “Next time you want some company just say so, you idiot.”

“…I didn’t want to burden you.” Sorey admitted after some minutes, the confession pulling a sigh from Mikleo this time.

“You keeping your feelings from me is what burdens me.” Mikleo said, shaking his head. “Stop being an idiot and rely on me. You can’t handle all the weight on your own but both of us together can. Just like we always have.”

Sorey didn’t say anything at first, but he did burrow his face deeper in Mikleo’s skin, hiding himself. Sorey’s undershirt was too thin, so Mikleo could feel warmth rolling off Sorey’s body like waves when he fisted the cloth in his hands. He would get cold in no time like this, if they stayed for long outside.

But hugging Sorey was nice, and by the way Sorey clung to him, he thought the same.

A few minutes more wouldn’t hurt them.

“Thank you.” Sorey whispered a long time later, finally moving his head back from his hiding place in the crook of Mikleo’s neck.

“How many times do I have to tell you? Don’t thank me.”

When Sorey laughed this time there was nothing tense or fake about it. It was his usual smile, bathed in starlight. “You’re right. Sorry.”

Mikleo rolled his eyes. “And don’t apologize either. I’m here for you, you know that.”

Sorey nodded. “We’re both here for each other. Always.”

A smile pulled at Mikleo’s lips at that. He let himself slide from the railing until his feet were on the cold, stone floor. “Let’s head inside. You do need to rest, Sorey.” He said, and started to lead Sorey towards the door, a hand on Sorey’s back.

Sorey said nothing until Mikleo was pulling the door open. Once he spoke though, his words were rushed and soft, not very different from the first time he had asked a similar question before. “…Can I still stay with you?”

A soft blush covered Mikleo’s cheeks, who refused to meet Sorey’s pure gaze. “Since when do you ask? Just get in bed already.”

And once they were back on Mikleo’s room, that’s exactly what he did. He got into the bed, pulled Mikleo’s back towards his own chest and slept like he hadn’t been able to in the nights prior. Mikleo only had to twine his fingers with Sorey’s before he was following his friend’s example, falling into a nice, deep sleep that only happens when you feel warm and secure.

And when morning came, any extra weight Sorey had loaded himself with stayed back in the folds of the crumpled sheets of Mikleo’s bed.

Even long after their shared warmth evaporated.

 


End file.
